Ray Kurzweil, a director of engineering at Google, is convinced that biotechnology advancements will eventually outpace the natural aging process.

In other words: He thinks one day it will be possible for humans to live forever.

"Somewhere between 10 and 20 years, there is going to be tremendous transformation of health and medicine," Kurzweil said Sunday at the Global Future 2045 World Congress in New York City, as reported by CNBC's Cadie Thompson.

Here's his rationale: Biotech makes it possible for doctors to view the human body as a software programmer would view an app. If some cells aren't working right, Kurweil says, doctors can genetically reprogram them, just as a programmer would fix a software bug.

"There's already fantastic therapies to overcome heart disease, cancer and every other neurological disease based on this idea of reprogramming the software," Kurzweil said at the event.

Kurzweil, who became famous in the 1970s for inventing text-to-speech software that enabled blind people to read, is now working to make Google's search tech understand natural language.

Kurzweil's been talking about immortality for years. Not everyone agrees with his views, but now that he's at Google, it's a good bet more people are listening to what he has to say.